Credit: (Woodbridge Township)

Federal and state health agencies are waiting on the result of tests for radiation at Colonia High School in Woodbridge as officials look for causes of a suspected “cancer cluster” among former students and staff, the town’s mayor said Monday.

Mayor John McCormac said he has been in regular contact with officials of at least five agencies including the state Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for about two weeks.

All have agreed to wait for the results of radiation tests inside and outside the school that are being done by a contractor hired by the township, McCormac said.

“They have all engaged with us, and they have all weighed in with us on what we’re doing,” McCormac told NJ Spotlight News. “At this point, everybody is waiting to see the results of the tests.”

McCormac said the township ordered the tests more quickly than state or federal agencies would have been able to. The first round of testing, for radon in the school building, is due to end this Sunday, and canisters will be sent to labs for analysis.

Testing for radiation in the grounds and the building will go on over several weekends, and then those results will take another couple of weeks to analyze, McCormac said. He declined to estimate when the results would be announced but said that all stages of the analysis would likely be published at the same time.

List of former students, teachers

The actions follow publication in early March of a list of brain tumor patients — some now dead — all of whom attended the school as students or teachers. There are now more than 100 people on the list, which was published on Facebook by Al Lupiano, a former Colonia student who was diagnosed with acoustic neuroma, a benign type of brain tumor, in 1999.

Lupiano and other advocates have accused state and federal governments of not acting quickly enough to investigate whether there are high levels of radiation at the school — and, if so, whether they could explain the apparent cancer cluster.

But McCormac defended the agencies, saying they have been in regular touch with the township over the report.

“Somebody’s not being fair,” he said. “As soon as we called them, we jumped on a group call, and we were on it for 90 minutes and everybody weighed in, and everybody knows what everybody else is doing. They are, I think prudently, waiting for test results before they do anything.

“I don’t think anybody should be critical of what anybody is doing because it’s all new, and they all say, ‘You’re doing the right thing, when you get the testing, report back to us,’” he said. “I’m OK with what they’ve been doing.”

More action needed?

But Lupiano said the agencies’ approach doesn’t amount to the action that he seeks. He said he has not spoken with officials, and they have not asked to see his list.

“We have eyewitness accounts of people saying they have a brain tumor or cancer, and yet the agencies are still trying to decide if it meets the definition of a cancer cluster,” he wrote in an email. “It’s absurd. Frankly, until I see boots on the ground this is nothing more than lip service.”

The state Department of Health last week declined to comment on the Colonia issue but on Monday issued a statement saying it was working with the township and the Department of Environmental Protection “to better understand the issue and determine whether any relevant environmental exposure concerns are present at the site.”

The health department said it will work with the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to assess potential health effects at the site.

“If there are any potential environmental exposure pathways identified and a need for further environmental sampling, the state Health Department will work cooperatively with ATSDR to conduct a public health assessment and evaluate the potential for health effects,” it said.

Looking for answers

The state agency thanked residents for raising the concerns and asked for “patience as we pursue the science to try to identify answers.”

Lupiano said he interviews people who present themselves as candidates for his list to make sure their stories warrant inclusion. Several who probably should be on the list have been excluded because of missing or conflicting information, he said.

“I’m not willing to jeopardize the accuracy of my data,” he said. “Increasing the number is not my priority. Preserving the sanctity of the data is.”

Lupiano’s list now includes 103 people who report brain tumors and who are said to have a link to Colonia.

Only three victims are named: Lupiano himself; his wife, Michele, who graduated from Colonia in 1991 and was diagnosed, also with acoustic neuroma, in 2021, and his sister, Angela DeCillis, who graduated in 1995 and died from brain cancer this year.

The other names are redacted. They include a person who graduated in 1974 and died of brain cancer in 2012, and a 1995 graduate who was diagnosed in 2017 with the same kind of brain tumor that Lupiano has.